Indus Valley Times

NEW DELHI OCTO 31 : Union Information and Technology Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw on Tuesday addressed the concerns made by several Opposition leaders that they got alert messages from Apple, warning them that they could likely be a target of “state-sponsored attackers” who were trying to access their iPhones.

Speaking to India Today TV, Vaishnaw said the government was concerned about the issue and said certain agencies and law enforcement agencies have been ordered to probe into the matter, given the technical nature of the case.

“Some MPs have made allegations that they got alerts from Apple. I want to say clearly that the government is concerned about this issue. Apple has sent the alert notifications to people in around 150 countries. Apple has issued a clarification and that no one can hack into their phones,” he said.

Vaishnaw slammed the MPs for raising such allegations, asserting that people were involved in such politics as they did not want to see the country progress.

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Earlier today, Opposition leaders, including Shiv Sena (UBT) MP Priyanka Chaturvedi, Trinamool Congress leader Mahua Moitra, Aam Aadmi Party’s Raghav Chadha, and Congress leaders Shashi Tharoor and Pawan Khera reported receiving messages from Apple on Tuesday, cautioning them about “state-sponsored attackers attempting remote compromises” on their iPhones.

They also shared screenshots of these warnings on their social media platforms.

Apple threat notifications are a system designed by Apple to alert users who may be targeted by state-sponsored attackers. These users, who receive the notifications via iMessage, are individually targeted because of who they are or what they do, according to Apple on their support page.

“Unlike traditional cybercriminals, state-sponsored attackers apply exceptional resources to target a very small number of specific individuals and their devices, which makes these attacks much harder to detect and prevent. State-sponsored attacks are highly complex, cost millions of dollars to develop, and often have a short shelf life. The vast majority of users will never be targeted by such attacks,” Apple said.

Threat notifications have been sent to the iPhones of individuals in nearly 150 countries.

“State-sponsored attackers are very well-funded and sophisticated and their attacks evolve over time. Detecting such attacks relies on threat intelligence signals that are often imperfect and incomplete. It’s possible that some Apple threat notifications may be false alarms, or that some attacks are not detected,” it added.

“We are unable to provide information about what causes us to issue threat notifications, as that may help state-sponsored attackers adapt their behaviour to evade detection in the future,” it further said.

-PTI